Editorial: Brenda Stardig for District A

HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Updated
11:07 pm CDT, Monday, October 3, 2011

Houston City Council District A, on the city's northwest side, is home to a potpourri of races and ethnicities in working-class and middle-class neighborhoods featuring traditional single-family homes as well as apartments and townhomes.

Thanks to its location along Houston's Energy Corridor, the district is on the cusp of promising economic change, but with many of the challenges such change typically entails. Among these are traffic, drainage, public safety and other important quality-of-life issues.

Many of these matters are debated and settled at City Hall. We believe City Councilmember Brenda Stardig has proved her mettle in her first two-year term and deserves to be returned to represent this dynamic district. We endorse Stardig for re-election to a second term.

Over the years Stardig, a native of District A, has worked her way up the community government ladder, serving nine years as a civic club president and later as head of a superneighborhood.

A licensed Realtor, Stardig has made appropriate residential development and land-use policies a priority. Among her noteworthy achievements: a much-needed clean-up of two apartment complexes that had fallen into disrepair and become havens for drug trafficking and other criminal activities.

One of the difficult headaches facing councilmembers will be making appropriate changes to the terms of pensions for city employees, firefighters and police. This will require close cooperation with members of the Texas Legislature to change state law where necessary.

We call on Councilmember Stardig, as we do others serving on council, to make connections with state lawmakers in her area strong and open so that the city's problems with pensions can be cured without further delay.